


Ain't No Grave

by Desdemona



Category: Walking Dead, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Spoilers, The story I always wanted to write, and I'm broken for it, and now here it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 20:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desdemona/pseuds/Desdemona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's an old, old instinct to want to pull away, buried in childhood memories and the learned wariness of hands on his flesh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ain't No Grave

**Author's Note:**

> So! This story has been a long time in coming. It's alsoooo....Norman's gift! I specifically wanted to write a story for him and I've been wanting to do a Dixon brothers story since...God, since the brothers were reunited at Woodbury. We know how that went though, don't we? If not, I tagged it as a spoiler if you are that far behind. Anyway, I waited until today when my friend gave him the story! She printed it out and everything and I'm really just so happy about it even if I'm having a fit that he's got the unedited copy (I can't write on deadline and basically finished it the day before the con, oh boy). 
> 
> I've cleaned it up as much as I could, I hope I caught it all. As always forgive me, I'll be re-reading it constantly but it's actually really hard to read this one because I was living it for what feels like forever. This story carved something out of me and fit itself in. I never recovered from Merle. I never will. It's just a gaping hole there and the story kind of slid in...anyway, I am unequivocally angsty. I hate the word angst in this case because it sounds childish because in reality, I broke Daryl into pieces. I even tagged as such and I hate tagging with anything but what the story is but this IS the story. 
> 
> It's just....it hurts all the way through and I'm not sugarcoating it for anyone at all. Anyway, if you're still here, hey man, I wish you safe travelling. I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending but Daryl, in many ways, is very straightforward and I think it is the best ending for this. Adieu.

 

 

 

The sun bakes exhaustion into his bones and all he can think about is how he'll never get a chance to tell that asshole that he nutted up just fine when he had to.

_Cry harder, baby brother and I'll have to buy you a pair of panties._

He shuts his eyes.

 

* * *

 

He ties Merle's shirt around the red ruin of his face and hauls him on to his shoulder. His brother's bulkier frame makes his muscles ache by the halfway mark. When he's at the prison, his shoulder's screaming at him from the pressure.

Rick meets him at the gate, gaze full of wordless things that disappear on the next blink.

“We'll put him with T-Dog,” he says quietly.

Daryl hunches against the ache in his throat.

 

* * *

 

T-Dog's grave is a mostly empty hole with a few of his items carefully placed inside before they'd filled it back up again. The cross marking it is thin and a little crooked. There's not a day when any of them forget what he did for the group.

For their family.

To bury Merle next to him says enough to make the ache in his throat spread to his chest. In death, his brother finally has the respect that he would have never gotten in life.

After Herschel says a gentle, somber prayer, they fill the grave. Watching the dirt land on Merle makes his lungs seize. The air goes flat in his chest. His heart kicks off a warning signal that weakens by the second.

He shovels through it, makes himself watch until he can't see Merle's body anymore. Daryl doesn't realize he's actually shaking until he slams the shovel into the earth and nearly goes tumbling with it.

“You gotta breathe,” Glenn says from far, far away. “Breathe.”

Hands grasp his elbows, keep him upright. It's an old, old instinct to want to pull away, buried in childhood memories and the learned wariness of hands on his flesh.

Except he knows these hands. He doesn't have to look to see who's holding him because it doesn't matter. He trusts these hands.

The knowledge that the hands he trusted the most will never come swinging at him again, fighting or playful, gets him between the ribs, a knife to the heart.

Carol's voice plays soft in his ear. “Breathe.”

_Ain't nobody told you to give up yet. Open your damn mouth._

Daryl sucks in a breath on instinct. His heart gives a muted, sluggish thump as life rushes back in, tasting like blood all the way down.

 

* * *

 

They lose Andrea soon after. Michonne goes catatonic as they bury her. The marker for Merle's grave seems to wink at him, to lean into his vision no matter where he looks.

Somewhere behind him, a raspy voice whispers, “Ah, Blondie. What a damn shame.”

No one reacts but Daryl's gut knots all the same.

 

* * *

 

He spots Michonne over near Andrea's plot every day like clockwork. She never does much but stare down at the grave, face as blank and smooth as glass before eventually stalking off into the trees.

“She visits. Why can't you?”

Daryl stares ahead at the treeline where Michonne's disappeared through. Up on the tower gives him a clear view and he settles to keep an eye out for her.

“When did ignoring me ever do you any good?” The voice edges in close and obnoxious. Makes him flinch against his will and sidestep away, purely on muscle memory. His throat's gone dust dry.

“I'm dead, little brother.” There's a soft rumbling mockery around the words. “'Least you could do is come by and keep me company.”

Daryl stares at the trees but he's gone blind to it as his entire body locks up against him, trying to turn when the last thing he should do is turn toward the voice. He should climb down, make an excuse, get someone else up here so he could pretend this wasn't happening.

Instead, he reaches in his pocket for the pack of smokes he'd lifted from another walker.

Somewhere on the side of him, Merle chuckles.

Michonne doesn't come back on his watch.

 

* * *

 

Never a fan of sleep – being that vulnerable for even a few hours makes his skin shrink to his bones – he starts to avoid it when he wakes up from a dream saturated in the hazy yellow of a memory he'd long since buried.

Daryl can't even remember what it was. Just the notion of being too little to do anything and Merle's laugh, softer back then but still double-barreled with trouble. He swings his legs over the side of the bunk and keeps his eyes scrunched tight for a long moment, pressing his hands on top to try to push the memory back to where it belongs.

When he opens his eyes finally, there's pinwheels of color from the pressure. He blinks impatiently so it'll go away faster and finally the cell comes into view.

The body slumped in the corner has him scrambling for the crossbow. At least until the head turns and familiar eyes blink up at him.

Merle grins. “Looks like you and Officer Friendly got a lot in common right about now.”

 

* * *

 

Merle doesn't make a sound when he walks.

Daryl uses that to remind himself that his brother isn't really there. There's a level of fucked up right there that he has to use that extra information when he was the one who jammed the knife in but he uses it all the same.

Merle doesn't breathe.

Merle doesn't have a shadow.

Merle isn't _there_.

But when he slings an arm around Daryl's neck while he's working on the bike, the pressure is still the same, Daryl's jerk to the side is still the same, the hissed “Fuck off,” that escapes from the corner of his mouth is all the same.

Merle crouches beside him, shaking his head. “C'mon now, is that any way to talk to your big brother? You haven't even visited. How's a guy supposed to take that, huh? When his own flesh and blood won't even give him the time of day?”

Daryl hunches, clutching the wrench so hard that the smooth edges begin to bite into his palm. The pain is distant but it grounds him. The guilt swells beneath it, pressing at his ribs, trying to break out and drown him.

“Daryl.” Merle sing-songs, voice edging higher. “Daryl, Daryl, _Daryl.”_

His head pounds with the chant, his temples throbbing with it.

“Daryl?”

Daryl whips around, breaking a little at the corners. “Fuck, what do you want from me?”

Carl takes a half step back, hand on his holster, eyebrows furrowed beneath the hat. “We've been looking for you. Dad wants you with him on a run to Woodbury. Pick off whatever is left.”

His shoulders twitch at the mention of the town and he realizes he's holding the wrench like a fucking weapon at the same time he notes Carl eyeing him like he's lost it. Daryl brings his arm down, lets the wrench dangle between his fingers.

“Yeah, whenever he's ready,” he finally says. Carl nods and behind him, Merle mimics the gesture before pointing down to where Carl's still got his hand on his gun.

“Careful now,” Merle says. “Don't wanna end up like me.”

 

* * *

 

Woodbury's a ghost town, which is fitting with Merle hovering at his shoulder as they sweep through the abandoned homes. They sweep through the few houses they haven't managed to hit yet. There's not much to pick up but they grab anything useful nonetheless. Some clothes, a surprise stash of band aids, some clean and obviously unused syringes in the doctor's quarters.

Daryl doesn't realize he's waiting for Merle to make a comment until he doesn't. He turns, opening his mouth to....do something when Rick looks back at him from the door, eyebrows lifted like a question.

“Daryl?”

He blinks, closes his mouth as realization dawns slow and chilly. “Comin'.”

Shaken, he heads out behind Rick with Merle drifting at his shoulder. The few walkers they run into were clearly well-fed before death, likely former Woodbury occupants who'd hidden a little too well. They take out two, a woman that looks eerily like Lori when she crumbles to the ground and a little girl.

Carl puts a bullet clean between the girl's eyes. Rick gets the mom after only a fleeting hesitation.

They dump their bags – a pitiful run but no one was expecting anything else – in the car's trunk and climb in. Carl automatically goes to climb in the back but Daryl beats him to it, nudging him to the front with only a little guilt as he jerks his chin to Rick, who still looks a little pale.

Carl glances over, mouth pulled tight then gets in. Almost immediately, Rick clasps a hand on Carl's hat.

Reassuring himself.

“You know, if that boy's gotta kill his sister, he's gonna do it.” It's the first thing Merle has said since they headed to Woodbury. For some reason, the sound of his voice makes Daryl's heart lurch in surprise.

“You do whatcha gotta,” he murmurs, unable to keep quiet this time even knowing there's no sense in talking with a dead man.

He's fucking losing it.

He presses lips together until it hurts while Merle hums off key in thought. “Nah, it's not that. You know what is? You wanna know?”

Daryl turns to the window, refusing to let his own mind play games on him. Doesn't stop Merle from leaning into his space, dropping his tone to a whisper near his ear like a secret.

“You do right by your blood, boy.” The laugh is thinner than he's ever heard out of Merle with a bitterness that coats Daryl's throat all the way down to his gut. “When you gonna learn, little brother?”

 

* * *

 

Merle's grave looms at him when they get back. Daryl helps unload the trunk and pretends not to see. It's harder than usual and deep in his gut, fear digs it's claws in deep.

 

* * *

 

He relieves Maggie and Glenn early, waves off their token protests and sets up camp at the tower. He checks his weapons, his ammo and settles to watch the day fall under the inevitable crush of night. He expects to be alone but the sound of feet climbing up brings him upright.

He's not surprised to hear Merle's mocking, “Getting kinda jumpy there, boy scout,” which worries him but he's definitely thrown when Michonne comes around the corner.

“Where you been?” he says without thinking and goes blank when Michonne actually answers.

“Around.”

“Ooh, a full word. Think she likes you, little brother.”

And Daryl...forgets. Turns on his heel and meets the smug gleam in his brother's eyes which should have warned him right off the bat.

“Shut the fuck up.” The words barely clear air before he's snapping back in horror. He whips around to Michonne to say something, anything to hide the fact that he's finally fucking lost it.

Except Michonne just looks at him, her body angled naturally toward the dying sun so a shadow falls across her face. He should feel better for not seeing her features but there is something so much worse about being judged by a blank face.

“Go ahead and say it then,” he throws out the words like a dare, gets in her space. Almost wishes she'd draw on him. “Say I'm fucking crazy. Yelling at nothing, go on, say it.”

Michonne's eyebrows ease upward briefly but it's long enough to make her opinion of the situation known. “Didn't call him crazy. What makes you so special?”

The words knocks the wind right out of him.

Merle chuckles. “I kinda like her.”

 

* * *

 

“How long you been hearing him?” Michonne leans against the rail, her eyes dark and calm.

“Was in my head first. Shit he'd say.” He glances down and around, telling himself he's doing his job when it's really just fucking hard to meet her gaze while talking about how crazy he's become. “Then we buried Andrea.” Michonne doesn't flinch which makes him feel like an asshole for some reason. “He sounded sad that she'd died.”

“You know that isn't him though.” She raises an eyebrow. “It's all you.”

“Ain't dumb.” Hadn't he had that confirmed when Merle didn't even notice the syringes? Give him a drug, any drug, and Merle cracked a grin as sunny as a kid's.

But Daryl, he'd never paid much mind to it.

“You seeing him too?” Her gaze shifts over, right near where Merle is lounging and watching them. His brother hasn't said a word since Michonne shut Daryl down. Merle glances at her and Daryl's shoulders lock up in a sudden, unspeakable panic.

“Can _you_ see him?” He holds himself still, holds his breath.

“Not my demon,” she says, but not before staring almost dead straight at Merle. His heart shoots into his throat and makes itself cozy. Even Merle goes still. “Not mine,” she says slowly. “To exorcise.”

“Is that what I gotta do?” Daryl swallows hard until he can breathe again. “Find a priest, get 'im to say a few words and sprinkle some holy water on me? Lemme just get right fucking on that.”

Michonne's gaze drifts away. She looks over the rail and stays quiet. She points out a little group of walkers shambling in close and says, “They could be a problem,” like the conversation is over when he's no closer to knowing why he doesn't know a damn thing.

Except he plays back the conversation and “Not my demon” suddenly becomes...

“You see Andrea?” It comes out like a question but it's a fact, he knows it the way he knows when he's going to have a good hunting day or a shit one.

Michonne picks up his gun and takes out two of the closest walkers. The noise brings more which forces him to step in and lend a hand. Between them, the little group is down and out. She lowers the gun but doesn't face him.

She finally goes, “Did,” and Daryl can feel a little puzzle piece trying to wiggle into place in the jigsaw mess his life has become.

“Did,” he repeats.

“'Until I went to her grave.” Michonne glances at him, catches his eye before he can look away. There's shadows in her gaze, a deep down dark that went far beyond anything he's seen.

Except once before. Merle parks himself on the railing, whistling off key.

“Say goodbye. Make your peace.” She puts the gun back down, flips her hood onto her head.

“And if that doesn't work?” He can hear the desperation in his own voice and his brother throws an arm around his shoulders, bumps in close. The solid jolt of Merle's arm locks his muscles into place.

Michonne adjusts her hood, pulling at it until he can't see her face anymore. “Get used to seeing things sometimes.” She looks out over the land, to the walkers sprawled in the grass, the blood oozing bright then back at him. “Or always.”

 

* * *

 

The lack of sleep catches up with him and he dreams of a house on fire. The flames are so bright that he can almost see the stars.

Almost.

He wakes up to the taste of ash in his throat and his dead brother in the corner, idly carving into the wall. Merle isn't smiling for once when they meet gazes. “When you coming by?”

Daryl stares at the wall, at the tiny dents from Merle's knife that aren't really there and doesn't answer.

 

* * *

 

Carol's footfalls have a cadence he's got memorized like a second heartbeat.

So he's not surprised when she peeks in on him. He lifts a hand in response to her silent eyebrow lift and she steps in to lean against the wall. In the opposite corner, Merle is so quiet that Daryl can just about convince himself that he's not there in the first place.

Like it should be.

“So where've you been?” she asks as she settles, crossing her arms to show she isn't planning on moving for a good while.

In the middle of cleaning and loading a new pistol he'd found, he lets the bullet in his grip roll into his palm instead. Watching it rock, he mumbles, “Around,” and can't figure out why the word rumbles around his head until Merle snorts, jogging his memory.

Daryl makes a conscious effort to add, “Ain't been sleeping much. Can't.”

Carol tilts her head. “Doesn't work if you don't try.”

Surprised, he stops watching the bullet to meet her gaze while Merle makes an amused noise.

“Neat little jab there. She's got your number, boy.”

Daryl ignores him. “I try. Why wouldn't I? No use to anyone if I'm sleeping on the job.”

Her gaze turns thoughtful. “Nightmares,” she says after a long minute that he does his damnedest not to squirm through. Daryl rolls his shoulders, looks at the bullet again. Ash in his throat. His nose. His tongue.

“Don't have 'em.”

“What about dreams?”

“Nope.” He loads the bullet in the clip, gets another.

“No dreams at all?” Carol gets him here, with the way her voice goes low and sad. She doesn't do it nearly as much as she used to – nobody's got time to hurt – but when she does, it sucker punches him, makes it impossible for him to think, let alone talk.

And this time is the worst of them all because he has to lie.

“Nightmares ain't dreams.” He loads the clip and shoves it home. “And I stopped dreaming when I was a kid.”

An oozing guilt rolls through him the minute the words hit the air. Using his childhood to throw her off the scent, even for a second, makes him sick. This shit's got nothing to do with his childhood, nothing to do with his memories. Nothing to do with anything but his own...issues.

Nothing.

“Oh you think so,” Merle finally pipes up as Carol registers that he's blocking her and falls for it with a quick, sharp breath and a topic change. “You really think so?”

 

* * *

 

He has one more dream that is oddly the most like a memory. He isn't even in it, really. He watches from the sidelines as his brother leaves to join the army and his big, shit-eating grin can't hide the misery in his eyes. Daryl can't remember how old he is or how bad it's gotten by then but he sees his younger self, standing stiffly at the door as Merle hurls his bag into a beat up Jeep – God knows where the fuck he got that – and prepares to leave.

The young Daryl can only see that his brother is leaving. Under his shirt, Daryl can't see the bruises but he can remember them, dotting his ribs like splatters of black and blue paint. And yet, standing outside of the whole thing, Daryl see how much his brother doesn't want to go.

He stares down at the little kid version of Daryl who refuses to meet his eyes – by then, he'd gotten used to Merle never being there and this time is just more permanent – and that Merle looks almost ready to cry.

Instead, he thumps a fist under little Daryl's chin and makes him look up.

“Be back before you know it, little brother.”

And then Merle's gone.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes up, the sun's barely out. Merle's in his corner, running his thumb along the edge of his blade idly. When Daryl swings his crossbow onto his back and grabs his jacket, Merle smiles.

It's a little kid's smile.

 

* * *

 

Standing at Merle's grave makes the world shrink around him. The air is already starting to swelter with the day's heat and a fine layer of dust is all over him, like nature means to hold him now that it's got him.

His brain doesn't make sense of it at first. The cross is a little crooked and the dirt is just dirt in a hole. His brother is supposed to be in there. There isn't supposed to be a Merle anymore.

“Gone again, you asshole.” The words edge out on a croak. “You couldn't even say goodbye? You couldn't tell me what the fuck you were thinking? You had to just disappear?”

His throat tightens. Daryl drags his hand against his skin and sucks in a breath. “I'm not supposed...you don't get to be a ghost. You don't get to fucking haunt me when you left me.”

Another death in the family. He wasn't supposed to die. The rage is back and he realizes that it's been simmering all this time, making his muscles jumpy, tweaking his nerves. Building him up, amping him up.

“You left _me_.” It's not a yell but it's damn close to it. He knows better, he can't just lose it out in the fucking open with no one to watch his back if a group of walkers comes out of nowhere. Daryl yanks the volume down and paces away, trying to breathe.

“Is that all you got to say?” Merle taunts.

It's all he needs. Daryl flings the crossbow to the ground along with his jacket. “You asshole, you don't get to fucking judge anything I do. You left me alone, you abandoned me. You went to fucking Woodbury. Did you think you were gonna make it? Did you think you could just take the whole place? You knew better!”

He kicks at the dirt, slams his boot down on the hard-packed soil. Then again and again. It's the knife again and he drops to his knees to beat at the dirt.

“You son of a bitch, you knew you were going to die. You knew it.” Daryl heaves out the words and sucks in air at the same time. He can't breathe again. His chest constricts with everything he's ever meant to say but never could. “You keep leaving me and now you're not coming back.” His voice cracks. He cracks. Right down the middle. He can feel it, like an earthquake all the way down. “You died. And you're not coming back this time.”

_You do right by your blood._

“But you didn't have to do it alone.”

_He gave us a chance._

Carol's voice rolls through him with all the suddenness of a wave. He crumples in the dirt, in the dust, trying to breathe when it's easier to let the air out in broken gasps.

Daryl doesn't know how long he's on the ground but when he sits up again, Merle's there. Except it's not the Merle he saw last. It's the Merle from his dream, young and cocky – _got both my hands still –_ and with the insight of age, he can see that Merle is terrified to leave him.

“I'm gonna miss you, you asshole.” Daryl's throat almost hurts too much to make words anymore.

Merle eases over, knocks his fist under Daryl's chin but he can't feel it this time. Somehow, that fact makes his chest hurt the most.

_I'll be seeing you, little brother._

And when Daryl blinks next...he's gone.

 

* * *

 

Carol finds him later on the tower. He stares at the grave marking for a long time, waiting to see if anything will happen. When nothing does, he looks up at Carol, who holds out her hand.

Daryl takes it slowly, curls his fingers around hers. She's warm. She's real.

He doesn't look back.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
